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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025543">The elms still shiver</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid'>vermicious_knid</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gen, Short Drabble, mentions of abuse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:13:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>220</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025543</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dolores "Lolita" Haze/Humbert Humbert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The elms still shiver</h2></a>
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    <p>On a wednesday, on a thursday and maybe even on a friday – Dolores was happy. She would eat her food with a healthy appetite, the whipped-cream fudge sundays her mother never allowed her to have, the fries and would eye the motorcycles parked by every roadside diner with a curious, make-believe look.</p><p> </p><p>She skipped, sang, drew ugly sketches of green fields in chapbooks and sang along to the car radio with wild abandon.</p><p> </p><p>Humbert was in all this, amazed, enchanted. He would sit and watch her in silence forever if he had his way, and she knew it.</p><p> </p><p>He was her only anchor to real people, which he was but wasn’t. Sometimes it mattered what he said, but usually she just ignored his speech, his words blending together in a parental tirade that was so familiar she could cry.</p><p> </p><p>And it was all fine for a while, she thought.</p><p> </p><p>But then why does she throw up at every sight of a school bus, a busy mother with her child, a yapping terrier passing the road?</p><p> </p><p>She heaves up the sticky contents of her stomach, the apple pies, the chocolate fudge – everything and blood in-between. Humbert runs around the car and blots her forehead and neck with a cold handkerchief, trying to understand what ails her but this too, is make-believe.</p><p> </p>
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